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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25980298">A Backwards Glance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity'>quantumoddity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Penumbra Podcast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abusive Relationships, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Development, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Juno Steel Tries, Juno Steel is Getting Better, Memories, Mental Health Issues, Other, Personal Growth, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:00:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,227</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25980298</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Juno is about to marry the love of his life but its hard to forget the last time he wore a wedding gown. </p><p>So he's come to remember how far he's come.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Diamond/Juno Steel (Past), Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>117</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Backwards Glance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It seemed to Juno that there was more dust than there should be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How much grime, how many fragments, how many days manifested as faint clumps of barely there grey, could really accumulate in just under two decades? More than he’d ever realised. It stuck to his fingers in drifts as he moved box after box, aging his skin before his eye like he was moving further into the future rather than digging back into his past. There was no system to them, they were just stacked haphazardly with no labels and uneven weights so he had to clamber through them all to find the one he wanted. Clearly he hadn’t ever expected to be back here, when he’d been a brokenhearted younger lady he’d just wanted to shove it all away in this storage unit and forget. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Part of him wanted to go back to that, the part of him couldn’t understand what exactly he was doing here now. They only had five hours left on Mars, a quick, whistle stop trip to collect Mick for the wedding and to stretch their legs before another long haul into space, and he was spending it trawling through the shit that was too depressing to keep around even when he was Mars’ PI who most needed therapy. He knew he should be out seeing old friends and visiting old haunts before remembering he didn’t have any old friends and all his old haunts had been destroyed and then just going to a bar or a restaurant with the man he was going to marry in less than a month. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But instead he was here. And there was a reason.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That man Juno was going to marry was currently leaning in the doorway, politely not questioning his fiancee's decision to bring them here, also not going near any of the boxes that landed near his feet as they were thrown aside, waiting for Juno’s permission because of course he was. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can look,” Juno grunted, wiping the dust off his hands, not making them much cleaner and ruining his trousers into the bargain, “It’s just junk.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your junk,” Peter Nureyev amended, like that made it important and worth looking at. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He bent and looked through the first of the boxes Juno had jettisoned over his shoulder when it didn’t hold whatever he was here to find. That one was just old toys of his and Ben’s. Turbos mostly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re in quite a state,” Nureyev hummed, turning one over in his hands, watching as one of its arms sagged in the socket and counting the crayon marks, “I take it you weren’t as fond of this one?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Haven’t you ever had a toy, babe?” Juno snorted, moving aside a box of old school assignments. All Benzaiten’s, he’d thrown away all his own, “The more banged up it is, the more you liked it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah...no. I never did, actually.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Juno stopped, screwing up his face and cursing himself in his mind. Of course his thief had never had a toy, he’d never had the chance to be a child, “Sorry…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, it’s fine,” Nureyev said lightly, as if he thought it really was, “My love, what is it you’re looking for?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Juno bit his lower lip as he thought, eyes scanning the boxes that had seemed so few when they’d walked in but, now he was crouched amongst them, covered him like castle walls, “I...I think it’s in this one…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course it was in the box that had been pushed furthest back, right into the corner of the chilly, cramped little space that had been all a younger Juno could afford. It was the one he most wanted to forget. The one he’d wanted the most space between it and him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Again, the smell was mustier than it should have been. Inside the box, the old synthetic lace smelled like dust and stasis and just the faintest hint of rot. Juno stood and shook it out, unfurling the dress to its full length and holding it up so the pale sunlight from behind them washed yellow through the fabric and made it look like a skin of something. It made it look hollow, a space made to be filled. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” Nureyev murmured faintly behind him, his voice catching just a little. He sounded further away than he really was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Juno remembered when he’d first got this dress, spending far more money on it than his junior HCPD salary minus his addictions could stretch to. But at the time, it seemed worth it. When he’d worn this dress, even when he’d just held it up on the hanger in the store and imagined it on him, everything had felt like it would be okay. When he’d moved quickly and felt the waterfalls of tiered fabric had whispered, it had drowned out the doubts in his head. When he’d tried a twirl, just because he could, and watched as the lace floated in the air like it was weightless, he could forget the last argument they’d had and could ignore the fact that now a night couldn’t go by that didn’t end with them screaming at each other. When he’d looked at himself in the mirror and felt beautiful, he didn’t have to think about how Sasha still hadn’t replied to her invitation, how Mick changed the subject whenever Juno tried to steer it towards him being his best man, how Rita asked nearly every day now if he was sure this was what he wanted. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he could forget that the answer wasn’t coming as easily anymore. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Juno had worn the dress, it all felt right. Like an actor being given his costume, it had all solidified. The lines had felt more like truth, the repetition of them was only practise for the real thing. All the problems had felt trivial, things that every bride must surely worry about before their big day, before everything became as fairytale as they’d promised. Before the bad parts stopped and it was all just the good days, the bits he kept going back to them for. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The dress stopped him being just the son of the woman who’d gone mad, the brother of the dancer who’d died tragically young, the fuck up from Oldtown who’d thought he could make a difference, the jaded cop who’d started out with wide eyes and a clear heart but now needed as much drugs and drink as the rest of them to get through the day. He wasn’t Juno Steel. In the dress, he was Diamond’s wife. And that had it’s good days, at least. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nureyev stepped up quietly behind him, his voice soft and almost reverent as he placed a hand on Juno’s hip, “It’s a beautiful dress, my love. I’m sure you were a vision in it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Juno paused a moment before laughing roughly, “It isn’t. And I wasn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With Nureyev’s hand against him, the dress looked different. He didn’t like the style at all, it was overly flashy with it’s ridiculously puffed up sleeves and it’s ruffled tiers. He must have looked like a damn wedding cake with it on, one someone would spend too much money on and would turn out to be nearly all fondant. The front was cut too short and the back draped way too low, the fake gems around the bodice were tacky and dull even in the light. It just wasn’t Juno’s style. Which made sense, seeing as he hadn’t chosen it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it was so small, reminding him how unhealthily thin he’d been back then, how the drugs had made him drawn and all sharp, painful angles. How food had never been a priority because he was too busy at work or because Diamond had taken his wallet again and their own fridge was bare. How, without Benten to feed as well, there just hadn’t seemed all that much point in remembering to eat. In taking care of himself at all, as a singular person who was meant to be part of a pair. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well…” Nureyev was attempting a charitable kindness, “I think you would look dashing in anything, of course…but you do have a point. It’s not quite your style.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Juno made a soft noise of agreement, passing the material through his fingers, “Good thing I only had to wear it the one time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were marks of that one time all over the dress. Not the ceremony that never happened, obviously, but the night that had followed. And, almost ridiculously, Juno found himself smiling at them. He found the dark amber stain on the skirts where he’d spilled his fourth whiskey at the Pour and Floor. He saw the grease on the back where he’d ridden behind Mick on his hoverbike through the streets at two in the morning, far too fast, fast enough to kill them both if they’d crashed but Juno had just whooped and cheered until his throat was so raw he couldn’t make a sound. He found the mud on the hem and the burn at the edge of the sleeve from when Sasha had turned up, given him one of her rare, tight enough to hurt hugs and they’d hopped a chain link fence behind a store to shoot cans off the wall with his and Sasha’s blasters. And of course the whole thing was crumpled and creased, when he’d staggered to his own apartment and fell asleep on the couch well past sunrise, he hadn’t been in the right state of mind to take it off and fold it nicely. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And when he’d woken in the morning, he’d never wanted to see it again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That night had been reckless, profoundly stupid, one wrong step from turning into broken sobs and beating his fists against the pavement. But it had been wonderful too, everything feeling slightly unreal and just perfect enough to feel like the best days of his childhood. He’d breathed deeply, like his head had been underwater until that moment, and he hadn’t needed any powder or pill to feel it. After a while, even the space where Benten should have been standing began to feel less painful and almost friendly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d felt like Juno Steel again and, honestly, for that night it hadn’t seemed like a bad thing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d almost forgotten that night, in it’s bitch of a hangover that had stretched on for years and years of bitterness and depression and clawing himself back to some kind of control over his own body and his own mind. But it had been a pretty fun night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you like to keep it?” Nureyev asked gently, hand moving from his waist and sliding round until his arms encircled him completely, holding him fast, “We could take it with us and...I don’t know, perhaps I could sew it into something for you, a garter or…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Juno leaned back in his arms until Nureyev’s forehead was pressed to the crown of his skull. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nah. I’m gonna throw it out. Should have done it years ago, honestly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a tinge of relief to how Nureyev smiled and kissed the top of his head, “But I think you needed to come here today. Am I right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Juno smiled crookedly, “I did...thanks for coming with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course,” Nureyev murmured, as if Juno didn’t even need to thank him for something like that, as if it was obvious he’d wanted to be with him as he’d faced his difficult memories. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But standing there, holding his old wedding dress, Juno felt like he really did. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, I’m done moping. Let’s go do something fun, there’s a tea place over in Halcyon that’s right up your alley,” he turned in Nureyev’s arms and kissed his cheek lightly before leading him back to the door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now he could understand why everything seemed so much older, so caked in dust that seemed to show more years than had actually gone by. It wasn’t because of time as it was distance. It was the fact that he was a completely new Juno Steel, who could barely remember being so sad, so angry at the world. He was looking at the relics of another life, one he’d gladly left behind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe that was the reason Juno had wanted to come back here, when he could have been feeding his fiance cake from the end of a fork or something else suitably romantic and engagement-y. After all, it wasn’t really as far off as it seemed sometimes. He’d made those bad decisions, he’d hurt those people and been hurt in turn. It did Juno good to remember that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because now he could see how far he’d come. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He would close the door and plunge it all into darkness, the dress melted into a careless puddle of fabric where he’d let it fall. He would toss the keys down at the desk of the storage unit place and tell them cheerfully to throw out everything, he was done with it all. He would pull Nureyev out into a surprisingly sunny afternoon, into their new names for the day, and live the kind of life he’d always dreamed he’d have but had never really believed he would. And then he would leave, back into the stars with his family. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Juno Steel wouldn’t look back. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'd love it if you left a comment, letting me know what you think! This is based of an idea by my lovely girlfriend</p></blockquote></div></div>
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